


turned her tears to diamonds in her crown

by MostlyFandomTrash



Series: my songfics [6]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: I'm Sorry, Multi, Parent Pitch Black (Guardians of Childhood), This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 23:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20554346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyFandomTrash/pseuds/MostlyFandomTrash
Summary: some days, she feels like that was the worst decision she ever made./or, caitlyn black and the slow death of living.





	turned her tears to diamonds in her crown

**turned her tears to diamonds in her crown**

/

(_ God save the prom queen _

_ Teenage daydream _)

She remembers the day her mother died like it was only yesterday -- she knows, somewhere in the back of her mind, that it was really over seven hundred years ago, but it _ feels _ like it was only yesterday. She remembers: the year was 1043. She remembers: the way the woman, the witch, the healer, _ her mother _ , grasps her wrist at the age of fourteen and looks into her midnight black eyes ( _ eyes of the devil _ , the children at school said of her, as Tommy Acre throws rocks and pulls braids and James Young tries to fight for her honor only to be knocked to the ground by _ her _ instead), whispering of a father long ago gone and the things he's done and she just laughs -- she can never remember why she laughed, only that she did. She remembers: the way she sat in her mother's garden long after the sun went down, and she remembers: she barely moved when _ he _ appeared, eyes the same shade of black as hers with only a wicked gleam to differentiate them by. She remembers: crying and taking his hand and letting him, the man, the monster, the nightmare, _ her father _, lead her into the darkness.

Some days, she feels like that was the worst decision she ever made.

/

(_ Just another dressed up heartbreak _

_ God save the prom queen _)

She is twenty-two when she makes the first nightmare by herself -- she still looks fourteen, but she knows in her mind that she is twenty-two years and four days and six hours old -- and it is, regrettably, the best feeling in the world. A girl who's name she does not remember anymore, a girl who's name she forgot a long time ago, is laying on the ground in front of her, the black sand of the nightmare children pouring from her mouth. She is twenty-two and she is shaking and she knows she shouldn't have gone off at the girl but she'd been talking so loud and so much and so, _ so _ proudly, that her head was starting to hurt and --

( Her father would be proud of her, she knows. Her father would tell her that it was wrong to feel this way, like the weight and the pressure of the world rests on her shoulders and only she can make it right again. But she was never just his daughter, and he should know by now, after watching her grow up for fourteen years under the care of one such as her mother: witches aren't ones to hold back what they're feeling at all -- _at_ _any_ \-- times. But, she is witch and she is nightmare and she is both and she is neither all at once; the only thing she knows for sure that she is, is broken. )

\-- the girl is killed by rays of the moonlight the next night, and, from her place in the treeline; she watches, and she sobs.

/

(_ Only eighteen _

_ Turned her tears to diamonds in her crown _)

It is her oldest sister's birthday. The only reason she knows this is because she hasn't seen her father since the moment she woke up (not that she ever really went to sleep, not that she ever really does); her father does not like to be around them, her and his other daughters on the day that reminds him so much of _ before _. Before, this, whatever it is that his life has become. She stands from her bed and makes her way through the cave that serves as their house.

Somehow, her feet carry her until she's standing in front of his door, and somehow, her hand rises and pushes it open. She is immediately met with an onslaught of the very substance that has made up her being for the past three hundred and something years. Just barely flinging her hand up in time to stop her father's attack from hurting her -- he can not kill her; she has been in his charge for over three centuries, she is no longer capable of dying. _ Father _ , she says in a voice so low that it is a wonder he heard her speak at all, across the great cavern that is his chamber room. _ Father, Father, please. . . _

_ Why do you not speak to us? _

_ Why. . . Why do you hide away on her birthday of all the days of the year? _

_ Why do you mourn her if she still lives? _

_ Why do you -- _

She asks all these questions and would keep asking and keep asking and keep asking more if he had not interrupted her in the middle of speech, _ Daughter of mine, you do not understand -- you will never understand. She was the first of you, she was my first child, my first daughter, and I lost her to this -- to what I have become. To the nightmares. _

Her father hangs his head so low she truly thinks his hair -- let down for now, because he is home and he should be at peace in his home -- should be at least grazing the floor of the cavern. She takes a step forward and another and another and another and even more after that, until she is standing at the foot of the stab of stone that serves as her father's bed, if he ever sleeps -- she thinks that, like her, he does something that's a little bit of somewhere in between. She drops onto the floor by his feet, kneeling next to the only being in existence who remembers what it means to grieve for the dead who are not really dead.

/

(_ She's the first in line at the party _

_ She's the first in line at the club _)

She thinks that it was his laugh that she noticed first; it was loud but not obnoxious, it was and carefree: entirely out of place in this jailhouse she's found herself in. This boy, with the coal dark hair -- such a contrast to her own, spun gold -- is sitting on the ground in his dinghy, filth-covered cell and he is laughing.

Slowly, as to not alert any of the guards of what she was doing -- or what they would perceive her to be, what she is: _ awitchawitchawitch _ \-- she reaches out with her hand, placing it flat against the dirt of the ground and sending out her sand -- her substance, her very being -- to infect him; to turn him into one of her soldiers.

(It has been the longest time since the first one, the nameless girl lost to time -- lost to her own memory -- when she was only twenty-two years old and could barely stand to look at the one she'd hurt like she was about to hurt this boy now. She thinks she is numb to the pain of it, now. It has been six hundred and fifty four years since she was given the choice to follow her father; some days, it feels like the best decision she ever made.)

It is much easier now, with this boy on the ground, his mouth wide open in laughter and her sand crawling up his arms to choke him in his throat. His laughter should cut off at least midway through, but as the sand of nightmares, of demons, of scared children who have nowhere else to go, enters past his lips, he just keeps laughing. The guards outside watch, some in confusion, others in satisfaction, as the boy seems to slump down, dead, to the floor; his laughter finally stopped.

She takes a moment, lets the lie sink into her bones, as she rounds the corner of the jailhouse and spots his body, as she spots a blackness that she thinks that only she can see pouring from his lips. She sinks down to her knees, a wail escaping her as the guards look on, confused and concerned and annoyed at this girl, this woman, who thinks she has a right to be heard. When she scrambles over to the cell, reaches her hand through the bars to touch whatever part of his body she can reach -- her fingers graze his foot, and that's all she needs -- and disappears, the guards don't know what's happened until it's already passed. This is the first of the witch hunts.

_ What is your name? _ She asks him, in the night, when he wakes up in a chasm of a cave and she is the only living thing in front of him. He does not laugh, now.

_ Nate, miss. _ He says, he whispers, to this strange girl with black eyes and the palest skin he's ever, ever seen. She looks like some kind of ghost, a vengeful spirit, and he is scared and curious and something, somewhere, in between all at once. _ My name is Nate. _

/

(_ And she's got that body, always got a following _

_ Everybody's looking up _)

Her sister was born to rule, a real princess in both rights; born to the King of Nightmares and the Queen of France, and there are times where she feels like it should've been different. The 1800s are so much different than the time she grew up in, almost eight hundred years earlier, and she feels so very much out of place. Dragging her hand along the palace wall as she waits for he rather-- for their father, she supposes, glancing behind her to watch the smaller girl rushing after the larger one -- to be done and finished with the queen for today.

_ Sister? _ The child asks and she stops, her hand on the wall stills; she turns around, drops her gaze and asks, _ Yes, Avaline? _

_ Why do you never stay? _ Such a simple question, falling from the lips of this girl, this child, her sister -- a question she had asked her, _ their, _father everytime he stepped foot into her home.

She banishes the thoughts going through her mind, about how a girl so young and so sheltered and so, so loved, should ever feel such a question is necessary. Someone would tell her eventually, Father would tell her eventually, what did it matter is she told the girl first? _ I must go with our father, to visit the others. _

_ To visit our siblings? _Asks the little girl who seems much too smart for her own good, at the age of merely nine.

_ No, not our siblings _ \-- she thinks, something sad unfurling at the back of her mind, about how none of her father's sons, none of her own brothers, ever made it past their second birthdays; he was destined to hold an army of daughters -- and she wasn't his first, but being his second was better than none -- _ Our sisters, dear one. _

_ Are they not one and the same? _

She shakes her head, and though she is smiling there is a sort of look there that says something different, something sadder. _ We have no brothers, my love, only sisters. _

The princess frowns, her eyebrows furrow, and she reaches up with a hand to touch her older sister on the face. _ Well, you're my favorite sibling, then. Anne and John Phillip don't talk to me like you do, like I matter. _

_ You are a princess -- not only of France but of the Night; you matter much more than you think, dear Ava. _

The girl smiles and lowers her hand as her name is called from behind and, when both girls turn around, they finally, finally, see their father come out of the queen's chambers. The older one rolls her eyes, and takes the smallest of steps back; the younger one grins and rushes over to him, talking quickly and asking more questions than he can possibly understand.

/

(_ When she walks by you want to be her _

_ And your boyfriend pretends not to see her _)

A hand curls through her hair, much longer now than it ever was before, and pulls at the strands along the nape of her neck. She's laughing and leaning down and pressing her lips against this boy's neck and her mouth tastes like the pack of cigarettes they smoked less than an hour ago and the tanginess of the lemon juice she knows went into her drink. A hand drags down her side to rest against her thigh; she grins, all teeth, against the side of his neck, and pulls back to look at him, her head cocked to one side as her eyebrows raise.

_ Nate _ , she says and he tilts head back to look up at her, balanced on his lap like she is; he brings up a hand to tap his fingers against her cheek as he grins lazily. _ Yes, doll? _

_ You, my darling, are horrible. _ She responds and ducks her head down again to press her lips against the edge of his own. _ To think: of all the people I could possibly like, I like you. _

His hand on the back of her neck pulls her back down so that he can kiss her again, muttering, _ you missed, m'dear _ and she happily accepts the invitation to conquer him further.

When they get thrown out of the bar two hours later for what New York calls public indecency, she grabs his jacket and takes of running down the street, laughing. He does waste a second before chasing after her.

/

(_ 'Cause she's got that fire, doesn't even try her _

_ Her booty has its own zip code _)

The spirit of Winter doesn't seem to mind the attention, despite the fact that she is meant to be his enemy's daughter and not a friend to him or any of them at all. Frost is frowning down at her, from where he is flying above the lake. _ You seem different today. _

She does not give an answer right away, she lets him wait for her to begin speaking before he settles down against a tree and watches her in silence. _ Did you know, _ she begins, _ that the human body has a total of two hundred and six bones by the time you're twenty-one? _

He leans forward, bracing one hand against his leg and laying his staff across his lap. _ How many do we have, then? _ This is not what she wants to talk about, and he damn well knows it. _ You and I never quite made it to twenty-one. _

_ I don't know. She gives a _ pause, a long moment of silence before she speaks again. Her voice becomes quiet. _ I think my father killed Nate. _

_ Why would he do that? _

She shrugs, and leans back to lay on the ground, to look up at the sky. _ Because he's my father, and I learned a very long time ago not to question what my father does. _

Frost does not say anything to that; he only moves to sit next to her, laying his staff on the ground next to them as he throws up a snowball. When it drops and hits her on the head, the golden haired daughter of nightmares sits straight up and throws a rock at him. The spirit flies away with a laugh and gives her another snowball to the face.

/

(_ All the pleasants bow down _

_ God save the prom queen _)

Her head is bowed and her eyes are closed, but her hands are shaking, trembling, where they rest in her lap. She does not dare look up into the face of a boy, of a spirit, of a Guardian, that she once called her friend and that she betrayed to moment her sand touched his skin. Frost crawls up the walls of her cave-room, but she does not feel the cold -- she hasn't felt much of anything in the last hundred years that she has spent alone, that she has with her sisters but alone; the last nine hundred years that she has spent with her father, crying and hoping and terrified that one day he will finally see the uselessness of his second oldest daughter's life to him.

_ Frost _ , she says and she says it as quietly as she can, even without the threat of her father or her sisters coming in to see him like this: angry and furious and grateful but unable to move much more than an inch without being in the kind of pain that she doesn't ever, ever wish to see again. _ Frost, I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you, but I had no choice. _

He doesn't speak, doesn't even look at her; he only looks at the walls of the cave and the cold, _ blackwhitegray _ of his frost that covers the walls. Finally, after an hour or two or five of the deafening and the damning silence, the Guardian of Fun asks a question. _ Why didn't you have a choice? _

A laugh, sad and oh-so-very broken, falls from her lips. _ Have you met my father, Frost? He always gets what he wants, no matter what. _

/

(_ Teenage daydream _

_ Just another dressed up heartbreak _)

Her older sister is tall, taller than anyone -- human or otherwise -- has a valid right to be and, standing here in front of the woman, the witch, the goddess, _ her sister _, there is a sudden feeling of what she might describe as terror. Mother Nature does not move like everyone else; she doesn't seem to walk so much as glide, and she doesn't seem to stand so much as tower. Her older sister is tall, and angry, and those two things never seem to be a good combination for her.

_ What have you done, sister-mine? _ The woman asks and she tries to take a step back but her feet are tangled in vines and so instead of stepping, she only falls and stares up at the chaos that makes up her sister. _ What I must, what I was told. _

_ You were told, then, to torture one of mine? _ There is accusation in her voice that is completely and totally justified and she has nothing to say that will fix what she has done so she only bows her head, closes her eyes.

_ You ask me these things, these questions, when the one who you should be asking is Father, Seraphina. _And her sister gives her a scoff, as if the very notion of speaking a single word with their father is such a simpleminded idea that she can't even begin to comprehend it. 

Her sister hisses the words, like even the thought of anything burns going up her throat. _ Not a chance in hell. _

/

(_ God save the prom queen _

_ Only eighteen _)

She has been alive so many more years than she was supposed to be; is still alive, somehow, even after all this time and everything that has happened to her and everything that she has done.

She is almost one thousand years old, much too old to still look the same way she did when her witch-mother passed on to the other side and her demon-father came to claim her as his own and take her away to claim the fears of the earth alongside him, she looks back onto the things that have brought her here, to this moment -- so much of it, shrouded and covered in the stench that Death brings with him -- and she remembers, everything.

/

**fin.**


End file.
